AMA: Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead, Stephanie Kelman on Product Launches

Using the product UI as one of your marketing channels for a launch can be so effective because you are meeting your customer where they are. It also reduces friction in the customer journey and lends to more seamless adoption. However, you must be very careful with marketing directly in the product UI because it’s easy to abuse the channel and create excess noise for your customers. Remember, at the end of the day, you want your customer to find value in the product and not be bombarded with marketing. Make sure your messaging in the UI is succinct and to the point. Don’t inflate it with marketing fluff. Here are some effective ways to launch and message new features within the product UI: * “What’s new”: Utilize the change log or news feed in the product UI as a central place for users to go to learn about new releases and get educated. You are teaching your users to go to this feed regularly so make sure you update it frequently. * Tool tips: Add tool tips to existing features or modals in your UI to highlight a new functionality. You have the user’s attention and it’s a more seemless adoption path. * AI assistant: Many SaaS products are introducing AI assistants directly in the UI. This is a great channel to use to let a user know about a new feature or enhancement to their existing workstream. It needs to appear like a natural and relevant suggestion so make sure you work closely with your AI team to incorporate the new feature into the AI data set. 

Here are some of my learnings from successful product launches: * Don’t launch a half baked product, you don’t get a 2nd first impression and you will burn trust with your users * Test your messaging with beta users - do your value props align to their feedback? * Re-market the feature with an adoption/growth campaign at a later date. You'll have new use cases, user testimonials, data proof points (which you don’t always have at launch) * Just say the thing - don't get distracted with marketing fluff and repetitive industry lingo.

I don’t agree with the strategy of “holding” back feature launches for a regular launch cadence. Tech moves fast and you should be constantly shipping. Launch the feature when it’s ready. However, you can make a bigger splash later with a big market moment or by bundling features together. Don’t worry too much about re-marketing your feature in this scenario. Bundling features together is a great way to…. Getting your feature in front of your customer often and in different ways can be beneficial. If you’re launching a big new product, then it makes sense to make a big splash with a market moment.

There isn’t a big hidden secret to prioritizing channels for your product launch. Choose the ones that have the best performance for your target audience. This may change from launch to launch depending on your goals and audience. Don’t just rely on vanity metrics like open rates, clicks, and impressions. Work with your data or marketing performance team to determine which channels contribute to the strongest product adoption. Make sure your channels are varied so you can maximize your reach. I’ve always liked the strategy of showing up in multiple places with a consistent message. For example, your customer sees the messaging via email, product UI, and social media within a very short time frame.

Be the expert in what the market and customer want. Do your homework and get the data to back it up. If you can show up to your product team with valuable insights from your customer, you will have strategic influence over the roadmap and development process. Be your own advocate - show the value of product marketing. Bring impactful results to the table from PMM initiatives. Show that this has an impact through other areas such as customer success, sales, retention, etc.

Finding new and creative approaches to product launches is one of the most exciting yet hardest parts of GTM. Product marketers have to break free of the GTM checklist. It’s understandable that PMMs fall back on email and social posts because they are efficient channels to use to reach your target market. If you don’t have the resources or budget to try a new channel, get creative in your existing channels. Instead of your typical post on X, whip up a fun GIF or 1 minute tutorial showcasing the new feature. There are a ton of easy to use video tools available like Descript. Another low lift strategy is to have an advocate or partner post on social media on your behalf. By utilizing your ecosystem, you can reach new audiences while validating the feature’s value through a 3rd party. Look for new channel opportunities like podcasts, partner’s youtube channels, or even (gasp!) direct mail. Have some fun, experiment, and start small. Make sure you set some benchmark expectations with leadership. Great leaders will support your new ideas and guide you as you fail and pivot along the way.

My best 'do not miss' piece of advice for product launches to make sure that your product positioning is solid and differentiated. It needs to be rooted in specific benefits. The best rule of thumb is if your competitor can slap their name on your main message, then you need to rethink it. Your messaging, value props and benefits need to feel unique and specific to your product. What is the one thing that your product does that a competitor cannot claim. Make sure that is the focal messaging of your product launch.

I've seen many product marketers who work really hard on a product launch, ship a beautiful campaign, and report back on their email open rates, click thru, page views, etc. While these types of metrics can be useful for an early signal of the product launch's success, they are not the best way to measure success and influence the future product roadmap. The best measure of success is true product adoption that can be attributed to you launch activities. Are customers using the product that you launched because they engaged with your email? Are your top product KPIs impacted because of this new product? Feature releases need to have really clear metrics for success that are aligned on with product ahead of time. In my experience, the more impactful metrics are the same ones that product is using to measure success. Help tip - keep measuring the impact after the launch for 3, 6, 12 months. You'll start to see trends and find opportunities to grow adoption. Let's talk about influencing the product roadmap. I always tell my PMMs that your superpower needs to be the voice of the customer. PMMs should know their customer better than anyone and use that information like a secret weapon. Think about it - you're in a product roadmap review and you're discussing prioritization. If you're able to tell your product team that customers prefer feature A over feature B based on data and learnings, then it's going to be hard for someone to argue with that. Here are some ways to dig into the voice of the customer: * Customer feedback through support tickets, success managers, sales * Chatter and comments on social media * Sales deals in the pipeline and their feature requests * Close lost reasons